1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a consumable management method. More particularly, embodiments of the present invention relate to a consumable management method and apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
A consumable for a typical printer, such as a ribbon, includes a chip burned with an exclusive enabling key. When the consumable is installed in the printer, the printer accesses the exclusive key. If the exclusive enabling key matches the predefined enabling key stored in the printer, the printer can work. Contrarily, if the exclusive enabling key does not match the predefined enabling key stored in the printer, the printer cannot work.
Typically, the manufacturer can only provide consumables burned with different exclusive keys to different dealers. As such, the manufacturer can only provide a consumable burned with the first key to the first dealer, and cannot provide a consumable burned with the second key to the first dealer, which creates inconvenience for the manufacturer to have to manage the consumables in stock.